By the way, I feel the need to point out that whether the Senate is all that biased depends on how you count. The median Cook PVI of the Senate is R+2. In other words, to hold the Senate, they just need to win the popular vote 51%–49%.
I think that bears repeating. If our voting system satisfied the median voter theorem (i.e. we had Condorcet, score, or approval voting), the median Senator would represent the 51st percentile of voters by conservatism, whereas under a perfectly well-apportioned system, they would represent the 50th percentile of the voters.
The Senate is, technically, biased towards Republicans, and this is stupid. But the only reason this tiny bias matters at all is the extremism forced on us by plurality-runoff. IRV/RCV and plurality-with-primaries both tend to produce winners from roughly the 25th and 75th percentiles, so that bias makes us swing from the 51st percentile all the way over to the 75th.
"Well, complain all you want… The Senate is in the Constitution."
While I applaud you for responding to this ridiculous retort, FWIW when I encounter this objection to my own rants about the perverted US Senate I generally respond as follows:
Whether or not I have a solution does not excuse you from acknowledging the problem. Once you agree this is indeed the cardinal problem underlying every inferiority we suffer compared to well apportioned democracies, then I am happy to engage with you on solutions.
Furthermore, vaguely channeling Einstein: A complete understanding of a problem almost always reveals its solution. Start by fully understanding the problem, perhaps best stated as why are Americans overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their federal government? Alternatively: How is it that we are supposedly self-governed and yet we are so desperately unhappy with... well... ourselves as governors?
If we Americans fully appreciated that the cause of our discontent has historically been malapportionment, and is today exclusively the perverted US Senate, our outrage would be so violent that what we today think of as outrageous solutions would seem timid. It's only outrageous because you fail to appreciate the severity of your circumstance.
To wit: You would never grab hold of that white-hot lever in front of you unless you recognized that you were standing in an inferno and there is a label on the lever reading "extinguish fire." The US Senate is the inferno in which we stand.
A good read and important topic. I like the idea of the reverse filibuster (which I assume would be coupled with an amendment requiring all bills to originate in the House). The only thing I'd add, in the spirit of the 17th Amendment, is selecting senators by lottery. If we want the Senate to function as a deliberative body, large groups of randomly selected people tend to perform quite well.
Thanks for keeping this issue alive. Yes, thinly-populated red states have disproportionate power in the Senate — hence in confirming SCOTUS nominees and trying impeachments. In this 1987 article I showed that the same governance principle (giving states equal weight regardless of population) also gives them disproportionate power in the constitutional amendment process.
By the way, I feel the need to point out that whether the Senate is all that biased depends on how you count. The median Cook PVI of the Senate is R+2. In other words, to hold the Senate, they just need to win the popular vote 51%–49%.
I think that bears repeating. If our voting system satisfied the median voter theorem (i.e. we had Condorcet, score, or approval voting), the median Senator would represent the 51st percentile of voters by conservatism, whereas under a perfectly well-apportioned system, they would represent the 50th percentile of the voters.
The Senate is, technically, biased towards Republicans, and this is stupid. But the only reason this tiny bias matters at all is the extremism forced on us by plurality-runoff. IRV/RCV and plurality-with-primaries both tend to produce winners from roughly the 25th and 75th percentiles, so that bias makes us swing from the 51st percentile all the way over to the 75th.
"Well, complain all you want… The Senate is in the Constitution."
While I applaud you for responding to this ridiculous retort, FWIW when I encounter this objection to my own rants about the perverted US Senate I generally respond as follows:
Whether or not I have a solution does not excuse you from acknowledging the problem. Once you agree this is indeed the cardinal problem underlying every inferiority we suffer compared to well apportioned democracies, then I am happy to engage with you on solutions.
Furthermore, vaguely channeling Einstein: A complete understanding of a problem almost always reveals its solution. Start by fully understanding the problem, perhaps best stated as why are Americans overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their federal government? Alternatively: How is it that we are supposedly self-governed and yet we are so desperately unhappy with... well... ourselves as governors?
If we Americans fully appreciated that the cause of our discontent has historically been malapportionment, and is today exclusively the perverted US Senate, our outrage would be so violent that what we today think of as outrageous solutions would seem timid. It's only outrageous because you fail to appreciate the severity of your circumstance.
To wit: You would never grab hold of that white-hot lever in front of you unless you recognized that you were standing in an inferno and there is a label on the lever reading "extinguish fire." The US Senate is the inferno in which we stand.
A fantastic article.
A good read and important topic. I like the idea of the reverse filibuster (which I assume would be coupled with an amendment requiring all bills to originate in the House). The only thing I'd add, in the spirit of the 17th Amendment, is selecting senators by lottery. If we want the Senate to function as a deliberative body, large groups of randomly selected people tend to perform quite well.
#sortitionthesenate
Excellent and informative. Thank you.
Thanks for keeping this issue alive. Yes, thinly-populated red states have disproportionate power in the Senate — hence in confirming SCOTUS nominees and trying impeachments. In this 1987 article I showed that the same governance principle (giving states equal weight regardless of population) also gives them disproportionate power in the constitutional amendment process.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1868&context=mjlr
Absolutely right. FWIW, I argue for unicameralism at some length in my book. https://www.amazon.com/Democratic-Theory-Naturalized-Foundations-Distilled/dp/1793624976/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=